#matrilineal descent

[a-witch-in-endor]

do you think it’s silly that as someone who isn’t really religious (more in a chill way than in a completely convinced way like i mostly just don’t think about it too much) but who was raised somewhat catholic (never really believed as a child either but some practices were fun/ parents alternated between saying they believed and saying they didn’t and didn’t do religious practices that often or assiduously) to want to reconnect with my great grandmother’s religion and culture (on my mother’s side; she was jewish). like sometimes i feel it’s pointless or that since i’m not religious that i’m just going to do it to feel interesting but that i’m not really sincere. i’m not really looking to convert but more like picking up and observing some common practices that are somewhat commonly observed as cultural rather than only religious? my family history is nebulous and complicated but. i think maybe my great grandmother would’ve liked her things to be passed on and that’s what keeps nagging me about it.

sorry about a long personal anon especially if it’s inappropriate or if you don’t feel like replying feel free to delete it, i am asking because it’s hard to get an answer myself and it’d be nice to have an opinion from someone who /is/ jewish. like i’d post on a thing like quora or reddit or whatever but i don’t really use that so i figured i’d try here. also obviously i know you’re just one person and not representative of all jewish people and all varieties of jewish faith and groups etc etc i’m taking all this with a grain of salt etc etc. thank you i hope you’re doing well and have a good day!

Hi anon, thanks for sharing your thoughts with me.

The first thing I want to ask you to think about is... your maternal great-grandmother: was this your mother's mother's mother? Because if so, I have bad news, and that bad news is that you're actually Jewish already. Oops. Jewish law about "who is a Jew" is traced down the maternal line. Do contact me again if you want to talk through what that might mean (or not mean) for you.

Secondly, I think it's worth pondering the relationship between religious feeling and religion. Christians do like to frame religion in terms of faith, sometimes to the point that we call them "faiths" in English, but most religious groups in the world don't self-define that way. Religion is ill-defined because it's actually a lot of things. It's ethnicity and culture, it's shared language and concepts, it's mythology and worldbuilding and metaphors, it's relationship with the soil of a homeland, it's the physical rituals we use to hold important moments of life and development, it's law and ethics, it's connection with ancestors and the ways in which they shaped us and changed the world. And yes, it's also how we feel about the Divine, how we connect with the Great Other, how we give prayers and offerings, but that's only one part of what religion is.

If I assume that you're not actually Jewish (which is not a given), then you are what we might call zera Yisra'el, or "seed of Israel". This means that your ancestors, fanning out through many generations, were Jews. Their food and culture and language and mythology and texts and prayers were Jewish. Feeling a draw to connection with that is not at all strange to me. It's part of the constellation of your history, and I think it's beautiful that you'd like to carry some part of that forward.

Jews are a people primarily of text and physical ritual. I have no advice on where to start aside from reading and acting. But I hope this was helpful, and please feel very free to de-anon and message me if you want to talk about it any further.

#jew on main #judaism #religion #matrilineal descent

[aurpiment]

There are no canonical ages for Ashe and Estraven’s two children—they could even be twins!—but I choose to imagine whichever ages imply that the elder was the reason they got married and the younger was part of an attempt to fix their marriage.

#mt #may divorce be with you! #tlhod #also in character in a kind of sad but also funny way #for Estraven in a culture where there is no discourse on legitimacy or illegitimacy because descent is reckoned matrilineally #to be like ‘well now I HAVE to marry Ashe’

[mihrsuri]

💬 if you have any for Elizabeth haha!

“Robert knows his place very well - he is my lover and my children’s father, not my ruler. Not that any give him his due for knowing it”

#lil and her ridiculous aus #meme #wip meme #otp: my robin #this is from a thing I am thinking about I like to call ‘have some matrilineal descent focused societal au’ #(that is it doesn’t matter who the father is it matters who the mother is)

[lovystar]

❝ A PRINCESS’ WILL ❞ ; BADA LEE

synopsis──after an assassination attempt, the queen invites the very best fighters from across the land to compete for the great honor of protecting you, the princess.

content──bada lee x unnamed fem!oc (reader). princess!reader, soldier under disguise!bada. currently unedited, pls be nice lol. fictional combination of medieval european and korea’s joseon dynasty aspects bc im not too concerned about making it realistic. incorrect pronouns (when not in bada’s pov). this world is matrilineal bc I said so. bada's a flirt. eventual smut w/ switch!bada.

word count ── approx. 5.4k

───

YOUR MOTHER’S STRONG HOLD—on the country, on the castle, on her children, and on you in particular as the oldest—was suffocating. You were destined to rule over millions, and your mother would not let you forget it. You had to be strong, caring for your people but unforgiving to others. That’s how she ruled. She’d shape you to be the same queen she was, and she’ll drill it into your head herself if she needs to.

Your pride would never allow you to say this to her face, but you supposed that she did a good enough job. The people loved her: she kept them safe and fed, gave them more than enough to start caring beyond their necessities and seek self-actualization, to flourish in the arts. She wasn’t very popular among foreign lands, and you might even go on to say that they feared her. She was often fair when wronged, but very rarely did she ever pardon those wrongs. She has never, in the time you've been alive.

Once, when you were very little and you were still taking lessons with some children of noble descent, you heard them repeat a saying they’d learn from their parents:

“Loving are her eyes, beauty bestowed, but fear the night the Hawk catches you lurking near her nest, lest you desire your entrails be fed to the eyas nights on end.” 

They spoke of their Queen with reverence and adoration.

Her way of ruling worked well for many years; you got to live a life of peace and prosperity the entirety of your childhood. Not many other kingdoms can say the same.

On top of your queenly history lessons and politics and mathematics and the sciences, she wanted you to be good at protecting yourself. While she has acquired the most apt Royal Guard, a future queen must still be able to hold her own. She ordered only the best archers and swords to teach you, and you were…decent, at it. The years of practice successfully stuck some things into you: how to hold a sword and a bow and arrow, which body parts to target, how to be light in your feet (this one was specifically useful whenever you wanted to leave the royal palace).

In your defense, your natural sensibilities were drawn to something else entirely. You’d always say reading was a more sensible passage of time. You would spend hours upon hours lounging in one of the library nooks or on a blanket in the palace gardens, surrounded by the pastel of the flowers.

You were in that garden when the assassin took a knife to your throat.

You lived, but it scared your mother terribly. Surprising—since you’d never known her to be a person who had any fears. In your mind, it could only mean two things. One, she loved you to some extent—she might just have a weird way of expressing it. Two, someone was threatening her bloodline and consequently, perhaps more importantly, someone was threatening her throne.

And she will not let that happen in her lifetime.

───

It has been two weeks since your throat was sliced open. Two weeks since the doctor instructed you to minimize strenuous activity and if you could, stay in bed as to not open the stitches.

‘You don’t know how lucky you are,’ the doctor has told you every day after your daily checkup. You know this, of course. Had the knife gone any deeper and had your court ladies not been around the corner, you’d be dead. It was, however, a hilarious thought that someone would bring a blunt knife to an assassination.

Your mother didn’t think it was funny. But in your delicate state, the anger in her eyes had never been funnier, and it pained your throat whenever you’d attempt to laugh.

“Will you stop it? The doctor spent hours on those. What will we do if they scar?” You rolled your eyes in response and she scoffed. “Glad to see you’re as genteel as ever, it’d be a shame if you had lost that lively nature of yours.” It sounded sarcastic, but she meant it. She did not want you to be passive. In her mind, that would only led to you becoming spineless and spineless Queen can't rule. You ignored her words, instead gesturing for one of the maids to bring you a cup of water.

“I’ve arranged for the competition to take place tomorrow, do you think you’ll be up for it?”

You furrowed your brows, “Competition?” Your voice came out roughly. The stitches began to itch.

Your mother groaned, “Please refrain from speaking, but yes, competition, have you not been listening to me? The best soldiers and eligible men have been traveling from across the nation for some time now. The men will fight and we shall see who is best equipped to protect the Crown Princess.”

“Must—” you coughed, “must we make them fight? Can’t we just pick one?”

“Just pick one?” She looked into your eyes incredulously, “You must have hit your head and injured your intelligences if you think I’d let just any one person be in charge of you. You must have the best.”

“Yes, Mother.”

“Very well.” She nodded once, “The doctor has cleared you to attend so rest, you will be awakened bright and early tomorrow!”

She walked out of the room and left you to your devices. You sighed. You allowed your court ladies to help you out of your daily garments, clean your wound, place the ointment and replace the bandage.

You repeated the process in the morning, placing a necklace over the bandage, ensuring it is not too tight but stays in place. You prepared for the days’ events, and after a couple of restrained breaths, you walked out of the room with your court ladies in toe.

───

Bada Lee spent her childhood just outside the place. Her family had raised generations of soldiers, many of which served in the Royal Guard. That was, until her father was dismissed and demoted to being a simple guard in the rural countryside. He had dedicated his entire life to the Queen and it was a shock to everyone when he’d been told of his dismissal. Up to his last breath, he’d grow angry whenever she’d asked him why. Why did we leave? How could a loving Queen throw us away as if we were nothing? She’d been upheaved from the City, and littered some place where she’d have to fight if she wanted anything to come from her life. Well, fight harder than she’d have to in the City.

Still, she knew that it didn’t matter where she was. Whether in the Capital City or the countryside, external expectations would have her be a wife and a mother soon after. She watched her mother suffer under these conditions, watched her neighbors, and the change in her friends’ nature as they came of age and were married off. They were all unhappy.

She’d be damned if she was destined to a miserable marriage. But above all, she’d be damned if she dies a nobody. Just another woman, forgotten by history.

Nope. That’s not her.

Growing up, she loved watching her father and brother train. She’d try to join, but her father would quickly push her away. She would try day after day, but it couldn’t be helped. So she turned to making her own sword out of a fallen tree branch. She’d copy their movements, the placement of their feet and how the air would rest in their lungs and rush out with the lunge of the sword—well, the lunge of the stick for her. Her brother agreed to train with her, but in his teenage years, he grew resentful of her talent. He decided to begin training a different skill, archery, but soon enough, he realized that this too came naturally for her. Over the years he turned to different combat skills, only for Bada to overpower him again and again. One day, he stopped helping her at all.

It was a cold winter when the sickness spread across the countryside. It was the sickness that took her father and it was the sickness that took her brother. The town had to develop a new burial site due to the amount of people that died at the beginning of the season. Death didn't relent there; people continued dying and dying until that site was full with bodies.

By the time her family succumbed to their sickness, there was nowhere to put them. For days on end, her only company was their cold bodies. She had placed them in a separate room, putting as much distance as she could. As the winter grew colder and she stared at the makeshift tomb’s door, she realized she depended entirely on them. As it stood, she was nothing, less than nothing, by herself. It was a matter of time before someone hunted her down, a young woman without any male relatives left and tried to turn her into a sellable thing.

She’d be damned.

In a feat of fear and anger, she grabbed her brother’s clothes and changed into them and styled her hair as he would. She looked into the small mirror, surprised to see that her crazy plan might just work.

But she needed to make people think it was her that died.

The day the town hall proposed a mass burial, she changed her brother’s clothes into her own and loosened his hair from the top knot it was in. She shaved his beard, feeling disgusted at the act and with herself for feeling the need to do this. She pushed through: this was about her survival. She reported the bodies, and snuck into the site later that night. Sure, she would be shamelessly taking her brother’s identity from this day forward, but that did not mean she would bury her brother in anything other than his clothes. She did not want that karma. Plus she could afford to lose one of the five hanboks.

The next day, she watched anxiously as they buried the mass of bodies.

She should’ve felt terrible about her relief once they were under the soil, and she did, she would miss them. At some point during the week she lived with their corpses, she forgave them for any bad they did to her. She could only think of the good things now, her father’s jjigae and her brother’s light banter.

She did feel bad, but at the same time, a weight had been lifted. She wouldn’t need to get married now, she could pursue something, she could walk around at night without a chaperone and she could talk to people without worrying about being seen as vulgar.

Yes, under her disguise, she was finally free.

───

Lee Bada had been Lee Hae for a year by the time the Queen requested all eligible soldiers to report to the Capital City. Her commanding officer recommended her to go as one of the top soldiers under his command. She has managed to climb her way through the ranks, demonstrating her strength wherever she went.

Nobody knew the Mother of the Nation had called them to the palace, but if only the strongest were allowed to go, then Bada was going to make sure she was at top.

It was strange being back in the Capital City and even weirder to see the inside of the palace when all she’d known before was its gates.

Bada stood in line with the rest of the soldiers in the palace’s courtyard, towering over some of them. Her back maintained straight, her head held high, as the Crown Princess approached the Queen. She bowed to the queen and sat down next to her. Bada controlled her facial expressions, but her feelings couldn’t be helped. The Crown Princess had made the soldiers wait under the sun, and now she had the audacity to look bored. Despite being so far away, she could see the way you whispered into one of your court ladies’ ears and how they covered their mouth. The laughter showed in their eyes though. In contrast, your attempt to cover your giggle was lazy, your hand falling from the front of your mouth before you could control your expression once more. Bada wanted to scoff. Had you no decency? Before Bada’s bitterness could grow further, the Queen began speaking.

“Welcome, loyal soldiers and citizens. I have invited you here today to compete for the highest honor of joining the Royal Guard and protecting your Crown Princess.” Her open palm gestured to her side, where the Princess sat gracefully. “It is a title that comes with great responsibility, and requires skill, power and loyalty. It would please me for each of you to partake and serve your country in the process. If you wish to stay, please take a step forward.”

Each of the four hundred soldiers took a step, the sound booming through the courtyard. Bada did not look to see if any citizens had stepped forward.

“I am so glad! The competition consists of a six stages with different ‘games.’ You must accumulate enough points in each stage to successfully move up to the next one. Today, we shall begin the first stage. You must ride out into the woods and bring back a rabbit that has been trapped and hidden. There are only two hundred rabbits.” the Queen paused and with a clap of her hands, “Go!”

───

“I don’t get the point of this game,” You stated without looking up from your book. “They’ve been out there for hours and no one is back yet.”

“Patience, daughter,” the Queen responded, “There must be a basis to being a good protector, is there not? Wouldn’t you say that enduring long distance and persevering in the woods is a good baseline?”

“You are so creative, Mother,” you sighed into your book, “You can come up with such fantastical scenarios.”

“So you would rather have someone who doesn’t know how to endure long distances riding and persevere in the woods?”

You didn’t respond.

The first to arrive was a seasoned soldier. He had been part of the Royal Guard for more than a decade, and was known for his hunting skills. The second person caught your mother’s attention. One tall and broad-shouldered man rushed through the Palace gates with 4 rabbits hanging from his horse with a robe. He dismounted, grabbing the robe, throwing it on the ground and bowing before the Queen.

“Seowol from the Southern coast, your Royal Highness.”

“Seowol?” Your mother questioned, “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I do believe you were only supposed to take one rabbit.”

“I wanted to secure a strong position, your Highness.” He remained in a bowed position, looking down, his arms stiff along his body.

“Certainly! Please follow eunuch Jinho to the bathroom and a change of clothes. You’ll be called when everyone has arrived.” He looked up and nodded, and quickly did as instructed.

The court ladies swooned over the man once he’d walked away, but you hardly moved.

“Did you see the way he looked at you? Oh!” the young lady fanned her hand. You chuckled, amused by the younger girl’s reaction.

“The way he got off his horse and showed the rabbits, he was so cool!”

“And handsome! Don’t forget handsome!”

You rolled your eyes at that one, “He wasn’t even that handsome.”

“So you do think he was handsome!” They all laughed, having caught something in your words.

“Listen to me, I said he was not all that handsome.” You repeated, “I’ve seen better.”

They gushed, trying to get you to elaborate, but your mother was beginning to look at you sideways. You thought it was better to stop then. With the light hearted fun you were having with your ladies, you forgot all about the dull ache of your throat. The reason you were having this ridiculous competition in the first place. The truth was there was something about Seowol that disgusted you. You couldn’t quite place it, it could be the abruptness in his movements and the way he threw the rabbits on the ground, or perhaps the coldness behind his eyes. A mindless cruelty to innocent beings.

Returner after returner, it was the same and they started blending into each other. They’d rush through the gates, and present the robed rabbit in front of the Queen before they bowed. They announced their name loudly, as if shouting would make the Queen remember them better. The cook would take the rabbit and disappear to the kitchens.

That was, until number 73th entered the yard. The sun was beginning to set, leaving the sky in a canvas of lovely purples and pinks. You didn’t notice him at first, but soon your ladies began to whisper. This particular soldier entered calmly, and only one hand on the horse’s bridle. A small ball of white highlighted by the black of his uniform. As he got closer, you saw that the white speck of fluff was the rabbit. He cradled it on his left arm, making sure it didn’t jump or fall. Once he’d reach the stage, he dismounted carefully. You noticed his height, and for the life of you, you couldn’t figure out how his shoulders managed to look both broad and slender at the same time. He came closer, bowing deeply before your mother and to your surprise, he began to approach you.

He was quickly stopped by your mother’s guards blocking his path.

“Please, your Royal Highness, let him approach,” You surprised yourself. For the past two weeks, you were scared you were growing paranoid of strangers and people in general. The fear was earned to some extent, you had just been attacked, but you were even more afraid that you’d grow to be scared of everyone, everything, and never come out of your bedroom ever again. Though, now, as you look over at your mother to let the stranger approach you, it seemed this fear wasn’t going to be an issue after all. You were going to be okay. In a lower voice this time, “Please, Mother.”

She rolled her eyes discreetly, waving her hand. “Let him through.”

The guards retracted. The man moved closer to you, and he bowed. You noticed the smoothness of his jaw, the curve of his lips and the pretty way his lashes decorated his pretty brown eyes. He was pretty. So much so you held your breath when his eyes finally met yours.

“My Princess.” He smiled, “For you.”

Oh.

Someone behind you gasped, and you were glad for the noise because that way he might not be able to hear the beating of your heart.

“May I?”

You nodded, despite not knowing what you had agreed to. The man walked even closer to you, and you unconsciously leaned forward. He placed the bunny in your hands, and you searched for his lingering fingers through the white fluff. He retrieved far too soon. You wanted to touch him for some reason. You wanted him to get close again and you wanted him to call you, once again, his prin—

“And what might your name be?” Your mother was not amused.

“Soldier Lee Hae, your Royal Highness.” He addressed his queen but his eyes never left yours.

“Lee, huh? You do know that was your dinner, correct? You won’t have dinner?” Your head snapped to your mother. She could not possibly!

“As long as my Princess is content, my stomach shall never be empty.”

Your head snapped back at him, a slightly ajar mouth. The corners of your mouth lifted slightly, but a sharp pain in your neck scared any adoring feelings away. The stitches tugged on your skin, and you brought your hand to your neck.

“Very well, no dinner. You may sit down, Soldier Lee Hae.”

───

Well, that was fucking stupid. Bada groaned, grabbing her stomach. She just had to give that damned rabbit to the Crown Princess, didn’t she? Even now, hours after dinner and well into their resting time, Bada could not decipher why she chose to spare the rabbit.

You had just looked so beautiful, and before she knew it, she was right in front of you. And as she remembers the look on your face when she gave you the bunny, your parted lips and your widening eyes as you looked up at her, Bada realized she only regretted her choice slightly.

There was no denying your beauty. Everyone knew that while you might be the Crown, you were also the prettiest bird in the eyes of the people.

But Bada couldn’t get distracted. She came here with a purpose. She was going to join the Royal Guard and bring back honor to her family. You might have been eye candy, but it didn’t change the fact that you represented what Bada lost, what she never realistically had a chance at.

It killed her. It killed her that they had a woman King and yet every other woman was still viewed as inferior. Did the only women that mattered lived in the palace? You got to be trained, you got to study the books—why couldn’t they? Why was it that she will need to pretend to be a boy for the rest of her life to feel free?

Could it be helped? Would you be different from your mother?

Her mind turned to her selfish thoughts. Perhaps she could use today’s events to her advantage. She could grow closer to you, on purpose this time, and perhaps that’d help her on the long run. She’d earn her position, of course; that was nonnegotiable.

The hunger grew furiously as she got lost in her thoughts. She couldn’t take it any longer. She got up, quickly wrapping the tight cloth over her chest. She hid a small knife on the inside of her left wrist, a security measure, though she was unlikely to need it. She grabbed something to cover herself with and left the small room she’d been provided with.

She was lucky to finish stage 1 where she did. When the last of the 197 soldiers that would pass on to the next stage arrived, they were well into dinner. The Queen had stated that for the remaining stages of the competition, only the top half scorers would receive a sole bedroom. Everyone else will sleep in the Great Hall. She reasoned it was to keep up the morale and ramp up ambition. It certainly did motivate Bada though. She did not wish to sleep uncomfortably among the stinky men. It was so weird, Bada knew they showered and mere hours later, a musk would develop around them.

She walked towards the kitchens as quietly as she could. Once there, she rummaged through the shelves, searching for something that was not a raw vegetable.

“Please, please, please…” She murmured to herself, and in her desperation, she did not hear the footsteps coming from the side entrance.

“Who is there?” A voice resounded. Bada froze, quickly kneeling down and hidden under the shelf. Fuck! “As Crown Princess, I command you to reveal yourself!”

The Princess? What was she doing up this late?

Bada had hoped that it was a younger staff member also searching for food (someone she could try her charm on), a simple guard (someone she could try to relate to and proclaim guard-to-guard solidarity), hell, she’d even hoped for a thief (someone who was even guiltier than she was). But the Princess? The Princess was someone she could not face. Perhaps for more than one reason.

As discreetly as she could, she crawled towards the end of the shelf. Across from here, there was a long table she could hide under and right across the table was the entrance.

She could make it.

If only she hadn’t run directly into the Princess’ feet.

She landed on her knees, and dread filled her head. She hung it in shame, some hair coming loose and framing her face. So this is how she would die, huh? With nothing to her name, a mere soldier title that she didn’t even earn herself. She would die without a legacy, without—

“Is that you, Lee Hae?” Your voice sounded extra sweet under the moonlight. “How come you’re out here at this time?”

She wanted the earth to open and swallow her whole. But there was no getting out of this.

“Princess Royal, please forgive my shamelessness.” She did not look up, still on her knees. “In my hunger, I forgot my place. I beg for your forgiveness.”

There was a long silence after Bada finished talking. Should she have said more? She was already on her knees, what else could she do to humiliate herself in front of the Princess?

“You’re telling me my contentment was not enough for you?”

Bada lifted her head quickly, only to realize too late you were mere inches away. You were so close she could count each beauty mark, each freckle on your face. She’d kiss them if you’d let her. She shook her head. Stupid Bada, concentrate on not dying!

“That isn’t it at all, my Princess.” She shook her head violently, to which you chuckled in response, lifting your hand to cover your mouth.

“So you’re a liar, then.”

“No, no! I am not, my Princess,” Bada opened her palms, “I will admit that as earnestly as my heart believes a smile from you is all I ever need to survive in this world, my earthly body persists in imprisoning me with cravings. I sincerely did not mean to succumb to my hunger.”

You watched the young soldier as they hung their head once more. You thought Lee was…funny. Funny in a very lovely and forward way that you couldn’t help but want more of. You brought a hand closer to her face, fingers lifting her chin.

Bada allowed the princess to lift her face, flushing at the contact. She could feel the heat rushing to her face, and it embarrassed her that you could have this effect on her. How you made her lose composure.

“Look at me,” you stated. Your head followed the brown eyes as they moved, trying to get them to look at you. “Soldier Lee, look at me.” You said it firmly this time around. Finally, the person in question did as asked. Big eyes looked up at you, begging for something you weren’t sure you could give.

“You know, Soldier Lee, you are the prettiest man I’ve ever met.”

Oh.

Widened eyes and dropped jaw, “I—”

‘I am not a man,’ she wanted to say. She almost did, and the fact that she nearly gave herself away scared her. She had never come this close to telling someone the truth. Not on impulse nor consciously. To the Princess no less! She was a mess. She’d better get a hold of herself if she intends on making it through.

Bada had proven that she was good with words, and here you were, leaving her stunned. You enjoyed it, maybe a bit too much. Abruptly, you stood up, leaving the soldier down on her knees. You offered a hand, and it was like a spell being broken. She took it. She gathered herself and she was back into the charming and highly trained voice. Your curiosity for the soldier grew as you watched; there was just something that screamed constraint in the way Lee spoke, but for now, you chucked it up to the respectability rules of the Queendom.

“I am sorry for interrupting your night, your Highness. I will take my leave.” Bada turned, but was quickly stopped when you grabbed her wrist.

It surprised both of you. As a noble princess, you had been taught from a young age that nobody but appointed servants get to come in contact with your skin. Yet here you were—two for two.

“Well, actually,” you began, “I’m here because I did not want you to go to sleep hungry.” You let go of Bada’s wrist, and she already missed the warmth of your skin on hers. It had been such a long time since anyone had touched her outside of training.

You signaled for her to follow you. She did, and you guided her to a small table on a corner. A small, white towel covered something and when you lifted it, Bada’s eyes widened. A golden serving tray filled with dishes.

“I ordered something be cooked for you,” you said, hands fidgeting, “I’m afraid it’s probably cold by now. I would’ve tried to get you sooner but my Mother kept me by her side much longer than I expected.”

“I—Thank you, your Royal Highness.” Bada bowed, stomach rumbling and mouth watering. “Thank you.”

“Please, you don’t have to do that.” You said quickly, “You were kind to me, and I couldn’t let my mother punish you for it.” You moved to pick up the tray, glaring at Bada when she tried to hold it for you instead. “I can do it! Plus, I know a spot.”

You walked gracefully, quickly, without spilling a single thing on the tray. Bada was amazed. The both of you stuck to the sides of buildings, remaining in the shadows. Bada anxiously looked around; what would people think if they saw her with the Princess? What rumors will they spread, and how much will they cost her? Her life?

“Through there.” The door was covered with greenery, and Bada could not see the door.

She moved closer to you, whispering into your ear, “where?”

She genuinely couldn’t see it.

You shivered. You could faintly feel her chest against your back, and the warmth it radiated.

You shook your head.

“Here, hold this.” You passed the tray to Bada, making quick work of the hidden door. You opened it and walked through. You moved the vines for Bada, she bent down and met you on the other side.

“Wow…” She gasped. It was a beautiful space, filled with colorful flowers and a pond, four trees on each corner. There was a small house, and Bada doubted it was more than just a bedroom and a bathroom.

“It is the old gardener’s place, but he died and it became abandoned.” You said, placing the tray on the wooden ledge in front of the small house. “The new gardener had a family, so he understandably needed a bigger space.”

You giggled nervously, and Bada found herself loving the sound. She got so lost in your voice and the pretty flowers that she nearly forgot how hungry she was. Nearly.

Bada sat down next to you.

“It’s beautiful.”

“I know!” She said excitedly, your eyes sparkling with joy, “Mother thought of destroying it and building something else but I just loved it so much, I wouldn’t let her. I begged her to let me have it for days, she agreed eventually and now it’s my little place! Very few people know about it; my Mother, the new gardener, my lady-in-waiting, you…”

You finished shyly, smiling at Bada before quickly looking away. Would it be too forward of her to grab your face and make you look at her?

Yes, she decided, yes, it would be.

Her stomach growled.

“Oh,” You gasped, “Please eat! I didn’t mean to make you wait.”

“Please, eat with me.”

“No, no, I ate quite well earlier,” you said, “and you didn’t!”

“I don’t want to eat by myself,” Bada said, “Princess, eat with me, please.”

“I’m telling you I won’t,” refusing her once more, “I'll force feed you this meal myself if you don’t start eating soon.”

“Is that a proposition?” Bada smirked. Your cheeks grew warm against your will.

“I only mean… I want you to eat, you have gone hungry because of me. I don’t want you to be hungry any longer.”

“Would you feed me then?” Bada’s eyes looked down at yours, “If I asked you to?”

You cleared your throat, eyes meeting. “Forgive me, soldier, if I’ve come across in a certain light. But I will never feed a man with two capable hands of his own.”

Bada saw the intensity in your eyes, and how they refused to look away from her hers. She leaned closed, eyes growing dangerous the longer she stayed fixated on you.

“You say ‘a man with two capable hands’ but what if I wasn’t a man? How can you be sure that I am?” Bada brought a hand closer to you, “How do you know these work?” She had gone crazy. In your gaze, she had forgotten herself.

Still, in the back of her mind: if she wasn’t in disguise now, would you feed her then?

You finally broke eye contact, looking down at Bada’s hand. It surprised you how much you wanted to hold it, it surprised you even more when your body started reacting to it. A simple hand with long fingers. A calloused hand from days spent training, yet unlike the hands of the men you’ve encountered. Their hands didn’t bring this strange feeling to your stomach. You mind showed you images of these very hands moving along your body; from the nape of your neck, down your side and in between your—

You scoffed, and then chuckled, “Please don’t be ridiculous, soldier Lee. Now, eat, the food is getting colder by the second.”

Bada covered her feelings with a laugh. She was relieved you ignored her impulsive questions, and at the same time, your response left a bitter taste in her mouth. You were just being nice this entire time? Was there really nothing else in your lingering touches and loving eyes? They were childish questions, but it stung nonetheless. She sighed internally; she couldn’t possibly be getting this close now. It was normal to a certain extent, she had the tendency to develop crushes all the time. Sure, developing one in the Princess would complicate the 'get close to you and advance her career' plot, but she was already here.

All her crushes have faded with time, and this one will too.

Bada finally began eating and she was grateful to you once again. She said so, with cheeks full of food and complete disregard for rules. Rules, you had both broken some many of them already, why start caring about them now?

#bada lee #bada lee x reader #bada x reader #bada lee x fem reader #bada lee x oc #bada lee x y/n #x fem!reader #wlw

[corpsecoded]

Matrilineal Descent, Robin Morgan

[spacelazarwolf]

IM SURE THERES OFFICIAL™ ANSWERS OUT THERE BUT I WANNA HEAR UR TAKE-- IF JEWISH HERITAGE IS PASSED THROUGH THE MOTHER WHAT IF A TRANS AND CIS GUY HAVE A BABY????? PLEASE HELP MY BRAIN HAS NOT BEEN ABLE TO REST I MUST KNOW

the function of matrilineal descent comes from a time before paternity tests, so the only way to truly tell if the baby had at least one jewish parent was if the person the baby came out of was jewish. so if a jewish trans man carried and had a baby, the baby would be jewish.

imo now that we have things like paternity tests and like. trusting your partner, i don’t think there’s any reason to continue relying solely on matrilineal descent to determine jewish status. some jewish groups are gonna hang onto that and i can’t stop them, but to me personally it’s one of those things where it’s like. are we doing this because it’s just always what we’ve done? are we not going to question this like we do with so many other things? how much of this is coming from a distrust or even disgust of interfaith marriage? where does this leave queer people who adopt?

and also like. we can’t continue to uphold matrilineal descent as the standard and also continue talking abt “jewish dna” or heritage being the thing that makes you jewish. why would someone who found out two seconds ago that they have one jewish ancestor generations ago on the Right Side be considered jewish but a patrilineal jew who grew up an active part of the jewish community wouldn’t? imo i think it’s bc we have so many conflicting ideas in the community about what makes someone jewish, and idk if that’s something that’s ever gonna get resolved.

#ask avishai

[tikkunolamresistance]

Hi! This is more a question about judaism in general.. Can you be jewish without matrilineal descent?

Google isn't being helpful so I'm you feel free to not answer because it's not relevant to palestine

Yes! Excluding patrilineal Jewishness is counterproductive, though many follow the traditional matrilineal principle that if your Mother is a Jew, you’re a Jew. However, more progressive spaces tend not to view inheritance this way and do not focus so much on where the Jewishness comes from!

Don’t let anyone denounce your Jewishness!

#jumblr #jewblr #org responses

[magnetothemagnificent]

Hi, I've been trying to learn on my own regarding this subject but I've been having a lot of trouble. Is there some sort of cultural disconnect between Jewish Westerners (esp Americans) and Jewish Easterners (esp Eastern Europeans but Middle East as well)? I had the weirdest conversation the other day with a Jewish American who didn't seem to think Ukrainian Jews counted as Jewish? Am I insane, or did I stumble across a cultural or political divide I wasn't aware of? How do I even go about researching something like that? thank you for your patience and help, and I hope people are kind to you.

So, they might be referring to the fact that not all Ukrainian (and any formerly USSR country) Jews are matrilineal Jews.

According to traditional Jewish law, in order for a person to be Jewish they either have to convert to Judaism or have been born to a Jewish mother. This law of matrilineality comes from a time when Jews were being exiled and scattered around the world, and preserving Jewish identity was extremely important. Before DNA tests, you really couldn't be 100% sure who a person's father was, but you could for their mother cause y'know......there would have been people witnessing them being born. Thus, it was decided to make Jewish descent exclusively matrilineal.

The USSR was very good at eliminating much of Jewish life and identity. Jewish documents were destroyed, so many people now don't have a reliable paper trail proving their ancestry and Jewishness. Additionally, some may be patrilineal Jews, but not matrilineal Jews, and therefore not considered valid by some Jewish denominations.

Now, I wouldn't quite say this is a "West" versus "East" issue, since many Israeli Charedi and Dati Jews feel the same way as American Orthodox Jews do. According to Israel's current Right of Return, people from former USSR countries qualify if they have even just a Jewish grandparent. This policy has allowed many lives to be saved during the Soviet era. With the war in Ukraine and a new influx of refugees, many Israelis are suspicious and don't want non-Jewish Ukrainians to be shown deference, and they are wary of Ukrainians who claim Jewish heritagr because they think they're lying just to have access to Israeli resources.

The situation regarding Jews and those descended of Jews in former USSR countries is pretty unique, and the "controversy" has more to do with interpretations of Jewish law than global location.

#jumblr #if jew know jew know #judaism #intracommunity issues #jewish identity #halakha #jewish history

[loiswasadevil]

Orthodox Judaism and Conservative Judaism follow Jewish law (Halakha), deeming people to be Jewish if their mothers are Jewish or if they underwent a halakhic conversion. Reform Judaism and Reconstructionist Judaism accept both matrilineal and patrilineal descent as well as conversion. So it doesn't matter either way because Babs Pewterschmidt is a Jewish Character

[haggishlyhagging]

“With the consolidation of private property and the father-family, not only the matriarchy but the fratriarchy fell in ruins. The mothers' brothers, abandoning their sisters, became the fathers of their own families and the owners of their own property. This left women with no male allies; they were completely at the mercy of the new social forces unleashed by property-based patriarchal society.

How women felt about this can be gleaned from a passage in the Arabian Kamil, cited by Robertson Smith. He calls it "a very instructive passage as to the position of married women."

"Never let sister praise brother of hers; never let daughter bewail a father's death;

For they have brought her where she is no longer a free woman, and they have banished her to the farthest ends of the earth."

(Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia, p. 94, emphasis in the original)

In reality women were not banished to the ends of the earth; they were on the contrary cloistered in the private households of their husbands, to serve their needs and bear their legal sons. But to women who were once so free and independent this must indeed have seemed like the end of the world.

With the advent of slavery, which marks the first stage of civilized class society, the degradation of women was completed. Formerly exchanged for cattle, they were now reduced to the chatteldom of domestic servitude and procreative functions. The Roman jurists’ definition of the term "family" is a clear expression of this:

Famulus means a household slave and familia signifies the totality of slaves belonging to one individual. Even in the time of Gaius the familia, id est patrimonium (that is, the inheritance) was bequeathed by will. The expression was invented by the Romans to describe a new social organism, the head of which had under him wife and children and a number of slaves, under Roman paternal power, with power of life and death over them all. (Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State, p. 68)

The downfall of women brought about a sharp reversal in their "value" as wives. In place of the bride price, the payment made by a husband to secure a wife, we now come upon the dowry. "The Athenians," says Briffault, "offered a dowry as an inducement for men to marry their daughters, and the whole transaction of Greek marriage centered around that dowry" (The Mothers, vol. II, p. 337).

Tylor, one of the few anthropologists to notice this reversal, found it an "interesting problem in the history of law" to account for this curious transposition of bride price into dowry (Anthropology, p. 248). But the law was merely a reflection of the new social reality. Once women lost their place in productive, social, and cultural life, their worth sank along with their former esteem. Where formerly the man paid the price for a valuable wife, now the dependent wife paid the price to secure a husband and provider.

How women felt about this humiliation heaped upon degradation is recorded in Euripides' drama, where Medea mourns:

"Ay, of all living and of all reasoning things

Are women the most miserable race;

Who first must needs buy a husband at great price,

To take him then for owner of our lives."

Even this was not all. After reducing women to economic dependency and to merely procreative functions, the men of early civilized society declared that women were only incidental even in childbearing. No sooner was the paternal line of descent fixed by law than men began to claim that the father alone created the child. According to Briffault, Greek thinkers in the classical period viewed the mother's womb as "but a suitable receptacle"—a bag—for the child; the mother was subsequently its nurse, but "the father was, strictly speaking, the sole progenitor" (The Mothers, vol. I, p. 405). Lippert writes that, while "no historian has turned his attention" to this subject, the evidence shows that matrilineal descent gave way to "the opposite extreme," which he describes this way:

She who for untold thousands of years had been the pillar of the history of young mankind now became a weak vessel devoid of a will of her own. No longer did she manage her husband's household; these services were forgotten in a slave state. She was merely an apparatus, not as yet replaced by another invention, for the propagation of the race, a receptacle for the homunculus. (Evolution of Culture, pp. 355, 358)

This idea that men alone created children indicates that even at this late date, the beginning of civilization, men were still ignorant of the facts about reproduction. Whatever vague speculations they engaged in on the subject, genetic fatherhood had played no part in the victory of the father-family and patriarchal power. Men had won on the basis of their private ownership of property. It was not biology but the Roman law that laid down the dictum patria potestas—"all power to the father." And, as Briffault's description shows, property was the father of this patriarchal legality.

The patriarchal principle, the legal provision by which the man transmits his property to his son, was evidently an innovation of the "patricians," that is, of the partisans of the patriarchal order, the wealthy, the owners of property. They disintegrated the primitive mother-clan by forming patriarchal families, which they "led out of" the clan - "familiam ducere." The patricians set up the paternal rule of descent, and regarded the father, and not the mother, as the basis of kinship -"patres ciere possunt." (The Mothers, vol. I, p. 428)”

-Evelyn Reed, Woman’s Evolution: From Matriarchal Clan to Patriarchal Family

#evelyn reed #patriarchy #women as property #human history #female oppression #male entitlement #history of fathers

[la-femme-au-collier-vert]

I was watching In Our Mother’s Garden (2021) on Netflix last night and was surprised to see Dr. Zauditu-Selassie cook for and feed the ancestors at around the 1 hour mark in what fits Dr. Brenda Marie Osbey’s description of an authentic voodoo tradition. Dr. Zauditu-Selassie explains her family of creole descent was matrilineal and “believed in Hoodoo,” though she is now a priest of Obatala in the Lucumi tradition. I understand many of the African diasporic religions share commonalities, though distinct, such as feeding the ancestors, but this is probably the closest to an authentic and respectful depiction that exists out there.

I’ve linked a list of additional resources on Lousiana Voodoo and Hoodoo here.

#Louisiana #voodoo #hoodoo #african traditional religions #In our mother’s garden

[kemetic-dreams]

Why Do So Many Americans Think They Have Cherokee Blood?

The history of a myth. 

BY GREGORY D. SMITHERS

“I cannot say when I first heard of my Indian blood, but as a boy I heard it spoken of in a general way,” Charles Phelps, a resident of Winston-Salem in North Carolina, told a federal census taker near the beginning of the 20th century. Like many Americans at the time, Phelps had a vague understanding of his Native American ancestry. On one point, however, his memory seemed curiously specific: His Indian identity was a product of his “Cherokee blood.”

The tradition of claiming a Cherokee ancestor continues into the present. Today, more Americans claim descent from at least one Cherokee ancestor than any other Native American group. Across the United States, Americans tell and retell stories of long-lost Cherokee ancestors. These tales of family genealogies become murkier with each passing generation, but like Phelps, contemporary Americans profess their belief despite not being able to point directly to a Cherokee in their family tree.

Recent demographic data reveals the extent to which Americans believe they’re part Cherokee. In 2000, the federal census reported that 729,533 Americans self-identified as Cherokee. By 2010, that number increased, with the Census Bureau reporting that 819,105 Americans claimed at least one Cherokee ancestor. Census data also indicates that the vast majority of people self-identifying as Cherokee—almost 70 percent of respondents—claim they are mixed-race Cherokees.

Why do so many Americans claim to possess “Cherokee blood”? The answer requires us to peel back the layers of Cherokee history and tradition.

Most scholars agree that the Cherokees, an Iroquoian-speaking people, have lived in what is today the Southeastern United States—Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama—since at least A.D. 1000. When Europeans first encountered the Cherokees in the mid–16th century, Cherokee people had well-established social and cultural traditions. Cherokee people lived in small towns and belonged to one of seven matrilineal clans. Cherokee women enjoyed great political and social power in the Cherokee society. Not only did a child inherit the clan identity of his or her mother, women oversaw the adoption of captives and other outsiders into the responsibilities of clan membership.

As European colonialism engulfed Cherokee Country during the 17th and 18th centuries, however, Cherokees began altering their social and cultural traditions to better meet the challenges of their times. One important tradition that adapted to new realities was marriage.

The Cherokee tradition of exogamous marriage, or marrying outside of one’s clan, evolved during the 17th and 18th centuries as Cherokees encountered Europeans on a more frequent basis. Some sought to solidify alliances with Europeans through intermarriage.

It is impossible to know the exact number of Cherokees who married Europeans during this period. But we know that Cherokees viewed intermarriage as both a diplomatic tool and as a means of incorporating Europeans into the reciprocal bonds of kinship. Eighteenth-century British traders often sought out Cherokee wives. For the trader, the marriage opened up new markets, with his Cherokee wife providing both companionship and entry access to items such as the deerskins coveted by Europeans. For Cherokees, intermarriage made it possible to secure reliable flows of European goods, such as metal and iron tools, guns, and clothing. The frequency with which the British reported interracial marriages among the Cherokees testifies to the sexual autonomy and political influence that Cherokee women enjoyed. It also gave rise to a mixed-race Cherokee population that appears to have been far larger than the racially mixed populations of neighboring tribes.

Europeans were not the only group of outsiders with which 18th-century Cherokees intermingled. By the early 19th century, a small group of wealthy Cherokees adopted racial slavery, acquiring African slaves from American slave markets. A bit more than 7 percent of Cherokee families owned slaves by the mid-1830s; a small number, but enough to give rise to a now pervasive idea in African culture: descent from a Cherokee ancestor.

In the early 20th century, the descendants of Cherokee slaves related stories of how their African forebears accompanied Cherokees on the forced removals of the 1830s. They also recalled tales of how African and Cherokee people created interracial families. These stories have persisted into the 21st century. The former NFL running back Emmitt Smith believed that he had “Cherokee blood.” After submitting a DNA test as part of his 2010 appearance on NBC’s Who Do You Think You Are, he learned he was mistaken. Among African Americans, as among Americans as a whole, the belief in Cherokee ancestry is more common than actual blood ties.

#african #afrakan #kemetic dreams #brownskin #africans #brown skin #afrakans #Ani'-Yun'wiya #tsalagi #Kituwah #cherokee #asian #asians #asian american #stop asian hate #filipino american #asian heritage month #aapi

[rabbitcruiser]

Teslin Lake, YT (No. 3)

The community of Teslin (Tlingit: Desleen) includes the Village of Teslin in Yukon, Canada. Teslin is situated at historical Mile 804 on the Alaska Highway along Teslin Lake. The Hudson's Bay Company established a small trading post at Teslin in 1903 (i.e. Teslin Post).

Teslin is home to the Teslin Inland Tlingit First Nations. The name Teslin came from a Tlingit word "Teslintoo." Teslin has one of the largest Native populations in Yukon. Much of the community's livelihood revolves around traditional hunting, trapping and fishing.

Teslin is made up of two moieties; Wolf and Crow. Under the moiety of Wolf there are two clans; Eagle (Dakhl'awedi') and Wolf (Yanyedi). The Crow moiety have three clans; Raven's Children (Kukhhittan or Crow), Frog (Ishkitan) and Split tail Beaver (Deshitan). Under their matrilineal kinship system, children are considered born into the mother's clan, and descent is traced through her line.

Source: Wikipedia

#rental car #Ford Expedition #Teslin Lake #Yukon #travel #original photography #vacation #tourist attraction #landmark #landscape #countryside #lake shore #dead wood #drift wood #flora #mountains #Nisutlin Bay Bridge #engineering #woods #forest #nature #pine #fir #clouds #the North #Canada #summer 2023 #Alaska Highway #Teslin #cityscape

[disorderofsevenstars]

Gender and Divinity

At one end of the gender spectrum lies the Feminine, associated with Black and darkness, the Earth and mundane matters, collectivity, interconnection, receptivity, cyclicality, synthesis, and heterogeneity. At the other end lies the Masculine, associated with White and illumination, the Heavens and spiritual matters, individuality, separation, exclusivity, linearity, analysis, and homogeneity. These two extremes, Yin and Yang, interact to create a multitude of permutations which lie somewhere in between the purely Feminine and the purely Masculine. Everything that exists as part of what we usually call "reality" is located somewhere in this intermediate space. The extremes themselves are conceptual, and do not exist in material reality, as they are characterized by a purity which cannot be found in Nature.

Sleeping, dreaming, and Death-as-a-state (in contrast with Death-as-a-process) fall within the domain of the Feminine, as do gravity and magnetism, Zero and the even numbers, the elements of Water and Earth, the Moon, and the Cosmic Void or World Egg. Femininity denotes a state of rest, stability, and equilibrium. It promotes slowness and longevity, regeneration and even immortality, characteristic of oceanic or cold environments and the organisms that live there, shielded from the mutagenic properties of solar radiation. The influence of the Feminine on human societies manifests through tribalism, collectivism, and egalitarianism, giving rise to social structures such as animist and polytheistic religions, cults, clans, matrilineal descent systems, polygamy and polyamory, democracy, communism, hedonism, mysticism, subcultures and countercultures. It is driven by the Dionysian impulse to shed the Ego, losing the Self within something larger, like a drop of rain falling into the ocean. The Moon is a mirror; it does not generate its own light.

Femininity is the original and final state of all things. It is prominent in small children and the elderly, more so in non-human animals (especially large and slow-moving animals, those animals which are more primordial or lower on the food chain, as well as small animals with collectivistic tendencies such as ants), even more so in plants, and still more so in rocks, soil, and water. In animals, it is highly oriented toward the senses of touch, taste, and smell. During the course of our evolution, we developed eyes, learned to hunt, learned to walk on land, learned to stand upright, became taller, acquired language and logic, mastered the use of tools and fire, and lost our fur; some of us also lost our melanin. The development of an embryo into an infant, into a child, into an adult, involves a loss of plasticity; bones harden and fuse, the percentage of water in the body decreases, and neural pathways become more rigid. All of these traits indicate a process of Masculinization.

The Masculine is the domain of awareness, alertness, problem-solving, and conflict. It governs changes, transitions, and boundaries. Masculinity is a property of electricity, odd numbers, prime numbers, the elements of Fire and Air, the Sun, and the Axis Mundi. It is dynamic and always in motion, striving to reach the Feminine rest-state, like an arrow flying towards a target, or a key inserted into a lock. The influence of the Masculine on human societies manifests through individualism and inequality, giving rise to colonialism, capitalism, competition, war, monotheism, monogamy, patriarchy, the nation-state, asceticism, and scientific thought. Driven by the Apollonian impulse towards separation and clarity, it prioritizes facts over feelings.

Unable to coexist and seeing plurality as a threat, Masculinity seeks to dominate the Other and propagate the Self, often through violent means; Western culture, Christianity, and Islam are examples of this. Monotheism and patriarchy have a mutual affinity, and in many cases, one promotes the other. The god of a monotheistic religion is usually male. The Sun is the central axis around which all bodies in the Solar System revolve. This tendency of the Masculine to see itself as superior lies behind the association of Light with Good, and Darkness with Evil. Humans, considered as a whole, lean towards Masculinity, and serve as a Masculine counterpart to the natural environment of Earth.

The supreme divinity is like a polygon with an infinite number of sides: simultaneously circular and linear. Fate arises from the interconnection of individual wills, a product of emergent complexity, many individual entities inadvertently working together in a larger system. "GOD" can be described as genderless, or a perfect balance of all possible genders. It has the Feminine quality of Being, and the Masculine quality of Unity. It is an all-pervasive energy field of pure universal consciousness, which can be channeled into various manifestations that possess genders and other specific attributes, like white light being split by a prism into its spectral components. These facets of divinity are conceptualized in every pantheon of deities, in the 12 signs of the Zodiac, in the 22 Major Arcana or 22 letters of the Hebrew Alphabet, in Kabbalah as the 10 Sefirot, in Christianity as the Holy Trinity, in the Tzolk'in as the 20 Naguales, and in Chinese cosmology as the Ba Gua (Eight Trigrams) and 64 Hexagrams of the I Ching.

[3/16/2024]

#occult #philosophy #gender

[astriiformes]

Hello! I have a very strange question that I do not know if you are the person to ask, but it falls under queer and Jewish. My parent is nonbinary, but biologically my mother (ze would be okay with me putting it this way) and didn’t come out until my teens. Through that side of my family, I would be Jewish, but am I still Jewish when the family member it would pass through matrilineally is actually nonbinary? We are not that Jewish, we commemorate some holidays but I’ve never been to temple because my parent didn’t find one ze liked.

Obligatory caveat that as a Jew by choice, this is not the area of Jewish religious law I know the most about, nor do I feel like I should be making any significant pronouncements on someone's exact status as a Jew given my own route to Judaism.

However -- if you're looking for a place to get start with your own research, the first thing you should know is that the answer to this question probably varies by denomination. I know that in the Reform tradition, which I converted into, both matrilineal and patrilineal Jews are considered Jewish by the logic that the "requirements" should be the same regardless of the gender of the parent, and so nonbinary parents would be included in that. Other denominations have different rules, however, and I am not sure which one you consider yourself connected to (or interested in becoming more connected to)

That said, you may also find that if you choose to connect to a Jewish community, there are often people who are technically, by descent, Jewish but who did not grow up with many traditions at home who join Intro to Judaism or conversion classes in order to learn more about Judaism and Jewish culture. There are layers of complexity to the idea that really come down to individual people involved and the communities they belong to, and I think that sometimes gets lost in the idea that there are yes/no answers to these questions. If connecting to the Jewish side of your family is meaningful to you, there are a lot of way to explore that, should you ever want to pursue them.

I hope that all makes sense! Queerness and Jewishness intersect in interesting and beautiful ways sometimes. I'm so glad the tradition has made room for that in the ways it has, and I hope this helps you some in your own poking around.

[magnetothemagnificent]

Hello, I would like to ask if you have, or can suggest where to find, a simple glossary of common/basic Jewish terms to English? I’ve found myself infinitely scrolling your blog on mobile and while I’ve learned a lot from reading your answers, several of the terms go over my head

You're good! Yes, there's more than one Jewish language, and in fact there's so so many dialects of many different places Jews have had a diaspora population in. Here's a good glossery I found which includes a lot of common Hebrew and some Yiddish words. (Although Yiddish isn't the only Judeo-language.)

As for words I regularly use on my blog, here's a bit of a short glossery haha. I tried to think of words and phrases I regularly use, but I could have missed something.

Ashkenazi- refers to Jews descended from Jews who settled in Germany and Eastern Europe in the diaspora.

Ayin Hara- Evil Eye

Beit HaMikdash- Either of the two Jewish Temples from history that were both destroyed.

Chabad- A movement within Chassidism that follows the values and practices taught by the Lubavitcher dynasty of Rabbis, and especially the seventh and last Rabbi in the dynasty, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson.

Chag- holiday

“Chag Sameach”- “Happy Holiday”

Chanukiyah- The eight branched candelabra with a shamash used on Chanukah

Charedi- Jews within Orthodox Judaism who observe Halakha more strictly and often reject modern and secular values and practices.

Chassidic- Jews within Orthodox Judaism categorized by increased spiritual and mystical practice that started in Eastern Europe in the 18th century that utilizes Kabbalah and “Chassidut”, which was first taught by Rabbi Yisrael Baal Shem (The Baal Shem Tov)

Conservative (Masorti outside of N. America)- A branch of Jewish observance which views Jewish practice and law through both a traditionalist and critical lens. It emphasizes the importance of both preserving Jewish traditions and practice, while also making space for reinterpretation and analysis to align with modern values and ideas.

Davening- (Yiddish) praying

Golem- a creature made of clay that is created as a guardian of the Jewish people. Most famous golem is the Golem of Prague.

Goy- gentile

Halakha- Jewish law

Kabbalah- Jewish mystical tradition. Highly spiritual and exclusive even within Judaism.

Kashrut- Jewish dietary practice

Matrilineal- refers to Jews who were born Jewish through matrilineal descent. Matrilineal descent is the parameter for Jewish identity used by Orthodox and Conservative Judaism.

Menorah- lit. “lamp”. Used mainly to refer to the seven branches lamp used in the Beit HaMikdash or the Chanukiyah used on Chanukah.

Midrash- Broadly refers to Rabbinic exegesis of traditional Jewish texts (the Tanakh and some additional texts) with alternative interpretations of the text.

Minhag- Jewish custom.

Mitzvah- commandment.

Mizrachi- broad term referring to Jews descended from Jews who settled in Asia and North Africa in the diaspora. Sometimes used to distinguish between those who populations predated Sephardic presence, although other times is used inclusively of Sephardic Jews.

Orthodox- a branch of Jewish observance categorized by strict adherence to Halakha and traditional Jewish values.

Patrilineal- refers to Jews who were born Jewish through patrilineal descent.

Reform- a branch of Jewish observance that affirms the central tenets of Judaism while also acknowledging the diversity of Jewish practice and the need for adaptability in Jewish life and practice.

“Refua Shelemah”- Full recovery. Hebrew for “Get well soon”.

Rosh Chodesh- The ‘head’ of the month.

Sephardi- refers to Jews descended from Jews who settled in the Iberian Peninsula in the diaspora and those who settled in other lands following the expulsion of Jews from Spain and Portugal.

Shabbat- the Jewish Sabbath

Shofar- an animal horn traditionally made from a ram or kudu’s horn that is used in Jewish ritual.

Talmud- The most central text of Jewish law comprised of the recorded writings and debates of the Rabbis of the Jewish court during the Second Temple Period. Composed of the Mishna, which is written in Hebrew, and the Gemara, which is written in Judeo-Aramaic.

Tanakh- Acronym for Torah, Neviim, and Ketuvim. The canonized collection of Jewish texts: The five books of Moses, the Prophets, and Writings.

Yom Tov- lit. “good day.” Another word for holiday.

And as always, if there's any word or phrase you're confused by, you're welcome to ask.

Although, I do have a tag "#if jew know jew know" which I use for posts about more "inside" stuff only intended for other Jews to understand or relate to, so if you're not Jewish and don't understand something that uses that tag, that's alright, you're not supposed to understand.

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#jumblr #judaism #jewish phrases #language